Just a note to all of you who read this blog, as you can we've got a new web site, and we're really proud of it. I hope you'll take the time to navigate around and check everything out. There are a lot of great archived articles and reviews to go back to, plus a wealth of resources.

One area I think you'll dig is our multimedia playground. There are a host of podcasts in there, including a couple of new ones. I recently interview New York Dolls frontman David Johansen and former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford.

Take a listen to both. I think you'll enjoy the chats.

Untangling the complicated network of out-of-print and unreleased recordings by the legendary San Francisco punk band Flipper would seemingly require a battalion of lawyers and archeologists. But the band's drummer, Steve DePace, is determined to do so, and in the process, he hopes to unleash upon the world a ton of Flipper material in the near future.
 
"It has been out of print for quite some time, and we're hoping to be able to do whatever we have to do in order to get that released again, whether it be on what is now American Recordings (the Rick Rubin-led label that released Flipper's 1992 comeback LP, American Grafishy), or whether it be on some other record label," reports DePace. "We're working very hard and diligently trying to figure out how to do that, and who would be best and how best would it be to put that out."

The importance of doing that is something DePace takes seriously, even though, as Flipper bassist Bruce Loose says, Flipper's punk aesthetic was always very tongue in cheek.

"It's important, very important, that the music gets out there, and especially with the historical significance and value of that material," says DePace. "It's a historical snapshot of what Flipper was and what the music scene was, and all that, back in the early '80s. The late '70s and early '80s were an important time for music and music history, and certainly punk rock and what's become known as alternative music, because everything evolves into something else."

An underground network of bootleg tape collectors who exchange tapes among themselves have circulated Flipper tapes and bootlegs of some Flipper albums that were never released.

"Most of those records, most of them came out on vinyl. Most of them never saw digital," says DePace. "Our old record label in San Francisco, called Subterranean Records, put all but one of those albums out on vinyl, and some of them may have come out on cassette, and a couple of them ended up coming out on CD, but you know, there's three or four albums out there — and now they're in the tape vaults — that need to be released digitally for the very first time, and there's one album in particular of completely unreleased material."

For news on Flipper, go to www.myspace.com/flipper. As far as I know, there's no word on when Flipper's new album is going to drop.

These are troubling times for people who really and truly love music. Count Dweezil Zappa, eldest son of the inimitable Frank Zappa, among those who think it's in a real deep decline, and he doesn't know when, or if, it'll be pulled out its current funk.

"I grew up hearing really only what Frank was playing or working on in the house or listening to in the house, and I didn't really hear the radio or any other popular music until I was 11 or 12," recalls Dweezil. "I didn't really hear the radio or any other popular musicc until I was 11 or 12, and I started hearing the popular bands of the time, and 10 years before the time. So, it was bands like Led Zeppelin and Van Halen and AC/DC and all these rock bands ... rock was king, and everybody wanted to actually be a pretty good musician. Flash forward 10, 15 years from that, and everybody wants to just have the right tattoos and the right haircut and not be able to play very well. And then, now, it's all about everybody has to have their own dance squad and tape their music, and it doesn't matter if you can play or not."

Understandably frustrated by the current lack of imagination and devotion to the craft of music making, Dweezil has been busy reintroducing the public to the utterly original, hilariously satirical, painstakingly composed music of his father with the Zappa Plays Zappa project (see the bottom of this post for news on what's upcoming for this unit). A new, richly filmed double-disc DVD set — titled "Zappa Plays Zappa" (personally, I think it's one of the best concert DVDs of the year) — of two 2006 performances by the band he's formed to play Frank's music is out, and the astounding musicianship on display here stands in sharp contrast to the lackluster playing found in many of today's groups (not all, though, as I'll contend there's still amazing music being performed in the underground, as there always is).

"Some people say, 'Man, it keeps getting better,' and there might be a lot of people that would disagree with that," says Dweezil. "Some of these cycles ... have happened throughout the history of music, but it's more stagnant now creatively in a lot of ways in terms of what gets out on the airwaves than I think it's ever been, and back in the days when Frank first came out and other bands in the late''60s/early '70s, record companies were not 'corporatized' in the way they are now, and they used to have, as Frank described, these cigar-chomping impresario guys who would say, 'I don't know if it works. Let's just try it.' And so, you don't have that. Everything is a very calculated concept, and it's quite rare that something unique finds its way out there to the masses anymore."

Is Dweezil right? And if so, who's to blame? Is it the homogenized state of commercial radio? Is it the corporate suits at record companions who are so blind to quality music that they'd probably have rejected The Beatles? Or, is it us? Have we accepted the lowest-common denominator for so long that we've lost the ability to distinguish between good music and garbage? I want to know what you think.

It's my contention that the charts have never been a good indicator of the state of music, and if that's all you're focused on, then you're really not that much of a music fan. So, I'll throw that out there and see if we can get a discussion going. 

In the meantime, here's some news on the Zappa Plays Zappa front. Dweezil says there will be a live album from the '07 tour this year that will coincide with this summer's version of the Zappa Plays Zappa tour. And, later, there will be another DVD; this time it'll include footage of the '07 tour, and it'll be different from the DVD that's out now.

"It won't be in the same vein as the first one, which was quite an expensive presentation," says Dweezil. "There was a large crew, at least 40 extra people, a recording truck, cameras ... the other one is more of a guerilla, hand-held shoot, an indie sort of day-in-the-life experience concept with interviews and performances."

For more information, visit www.zappaplayszappa.com

One day, Dave Hart was a student at NYU Film School learning moviemaking from none other than Martin Scorsese and working as an usher at the Fillmore East, making peanuts. What a difference 24 hours makes.

Literally, the next day after negotiating for better pay for himself and fellow ushers at the venue with the grand poobah of concert promoters, Bill Graham, Hart found himself working as an agent for the likes of Janis Joplin and Santana.

"There was a week-long run of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and the ushers who got paid $15 a night for doing two shows on a Saturday and two shows on a Friday, for instance, were only going to get paid $7.50 for each night, and so the ushers were all upset, because we had expenses," explains Hart, "and Bill, who is a mensch — a guy you could talk to — heard about the complaints and said, 'Meet me in the balcony after a show,' and we went upstairs, and I was the first to stand up and say, 'We still have the same expenses to get here to work, and we're not getting paid, so we'd like to get paid a little more for these one-show deals. The next day, I got called into his office, and he said, 'Congratulations. You won the negotiation. I'm going to raise the fee for the ushers to $10. And by the way, do you want a job."
 
The year was 1969, and Hart took Graham's offer. These days, Hart, in his fifth decade of concert promotions, is handling Ringo Starr's 10th All-Starr Tour this summer. So far, ticket sales are doing incredibly well, considering the economy.

"The Ringo tour, so far the ticket sales have been superb," says Hart. "The tour consists of Ringo's All-Starr Band. He's been doing this for 10 years and putting together great bands. And this one has Billy Squier on guitar, and Hamish Stuart on bass — Hamish from the Average White Band — Gary Wright on keyboards, and Edgar Winter on keyboards and saxophone and anything else that's available for him to play. It's quite a bunch of guys, it really is. The band always seems to respond to Ringo's direction, and we've had some great, great shows. A couple of years ago, we had Rod Argent in the band with Billy Squier and Richard Marx. So, we've changed it up a little with Gary Wright ... oh, and Colin Hay is in the band, from Men At Work."

Hart is still fascinated to see how they all defer to the former Beatle.

"It's really a great experience to put these guys who have history and who've had Top 10 singles, and put them together with Ringo, and they all seem to feel the same way: They turn around and they look at the drummer, and there is a former Beatle playing behind them," says Hart. "The other thing about it is, Ringo loves to play in a band, and that brings a sparkle, an excitement to everything that goes on on tour. It's just an absolute pleasure."

Hart talked with Goldmine about his long career in music and entertainment promotion. Watch www.goldminemag.com for a podcast of our Q&A with Hart. In it, you'll hear about an interesting stipulation in Billy Squier's contract rider, plus his early days with comedian Lewis Black, his favorite concert moment ever — here's a hint: it involves a certain New Jersey artist who's still alive and kicking — and other interesting observations on how the concert business has changed.

For more information on Ringo Starr's latest All-Starr Tour, visit www.ringostarr.com.

Robert Pollard, former frontman for indie-rock heroes Guided By Voices, has heard all the criticism. His songs are too short, and just when he latches onto a strong hook, he lets it go off into the ether.

That's not going to be the case on Robert Pollard Is Off To Business, his umpteenth solo project, and what promises to be his most significant release in 2008. With GBV, songs like "My Valuable Bow Hunting Knife" and their classic "I Am A Scientist" flew by in about a minute, minute and a half, two minutes — something like that. And albums had somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-25 songs. Pollard chalks that up to his impatience as a songwriter.

Busier than ever, with an art book called "Town of Mirrors: The Reassembled Imagery of Robert Pollard" that features his the wild collages (pictured at right) he's been making for years, Pollard stretches out Robert Pollard Is Off To Business, producing only a compact 10 clocking in at 35 minutes of powerhouse rock guitar riffs, pristine production from recording partner Todd Tobias and Pollard's rough-around-the-edges vocals.

He explains the change in strategy.

"It's a departure," notes Pollard. "I purposely took a different angle on this record. I wanted to be a little bit more disciplined with this one, especially with my songwriting approach and rather than just kind of like going with the spontaneous way I go about writing songs and keeping them that way, I want to hammer at them a little bit and make them longer. And I'm going to do multiple verses and choruses, and kind of like work on finales, where different parts of the song come back in at the end and kind of overlap and make sort of in the style of the early- to mid-'70s kind of a classic-rock style record and then make it more compact — obviously at 10 songs, longer songs."

He's expecting to get flak for that.

"Some of the criticism, which I really don't listen to, is that as soon as I get into a hook, its gone and I don't repeat it and it's gone," explains Pollard. "My comeback for that is, you've got to listen to the record again if you want to get the hook again. My thing this time was, well if that's kind of the criticism, then I'm going to give it to them this time, and I will repeat the hook many, many times in the song. So, I kind of hammer you over the head with it ... there's enough to grab onto, and you know, my short thing, my short-song fixation is kind of like ... it's just my impatience in writing. I just like to write a lot of songs, and [when] it's good enough, I'm ready to go onto the next thing. On this one, I felt that I should be a little more disciplined as a songwriter, and so I did, and so, it's like 10 songs, and it's out there right now. A few people have gotten early copies and listened to it, and so far, the feedback's been pretty good. But there will be some people [who] have a problem with the short songs, and now, I'm sure there'll be people who have a problem with the long songs."

For more on what Bob's up to these days, visit http://robertpollard.net/news.html. And be sure to dig back and see what all the fuss was with Guided By Voices, one of the most collectible indie-rock bands of all time; their brand of catchy, quirky, British-Invasion inspired rock was a shining light in the '90s, and one of their early records that went for four figures was mentioned in a Market Watch in one of 2007's Goldmine issues (I couldn't find which one, but I know it was in there).

If you haven't already done so, get thee to our podcast section at www.goldminemag.com and give a listen to our interview with Scott Kempner. No, don't say, "Yeah, I'll get to it later," and then forget all about it. Do it now, before that short attention span you have, thanks to the hours and hours of television you've watched over the years, has you moving onto something else.

In a former life, Kempner was the guitarist for New York City proto-punks The Dictators and Americana revivalists the Del-Lords. He has a new solo album out titled Saving Grace, and it features contributions from members of the Del-Lords and the Smithereens, plus rock 'n' roll legend Dion.

Kempner's relationship with Dion is just one of the myriad topics touched on in this exhaustive interview. He also talks about his borderline obsession with collecting sheet music, his triumph over a debilitating, rare nerve condition, The Dictators' friendship with Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band and how he used to buy records at a place that later became an Italian restaurant owned by none other than Al Lewis (who played grandpa on the TV show "The Munsters").

A great storyteller, whose fierce love of rock 'n' roll comes through loud and clear, Kempner is somebody you could listen to for hours — and this is an hour-long podcast, so you'll be getting your money's worth, even though we didn't have time to talk at all about the Del-Lords (I promise, that'll come later, when the planned Del-Lords reissues come to fruition). If you truly love rock 'n' roll, you owe it to yourself to listen to this interview, and if you ever, through some twist of fate, have the chance to sit down and have a beer with him, you better do it. It'll be a conversation you will never forget.

To hear a little bit of Kempner's new record — think old-school Springsteen — and to learn more about what he's up to these days, visit www.myspace.com/scott kempner